New Committee Examining Solutions to Enhance Coral Reef Resilience

CSUMB School of Natural Sciences associate professor Cheryl Logan is one of 12 experts selected from across the nation to serve on the committee.

SEASIDE, Ca., February 26, 2018 – The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently appointed a new committee of 12 international experts tasked with investigating strategies to increase the resilience of coral reefs. California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB) School of Natural Sciences associate professor Cheryl Logan represents CSUMB on the committee.

“As a committee, our goal is to use the best available science to review and evaluate potential human interventions that could mitigate the threats facing coral reefs,” said Logan. “An important component of our work is also to assess potential risks and unintended consequences of possible interventions.”

Logan studies the physiological mechanisms marine animals use to survive in a changing environment and how this leads to differential success across species. She is involved in ongoing work modeling corals’ potential adaptive ability to respond to rising temperatures and ocean acidification based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) future climate scenarios.

The sobering reality is that coral reefs as we know them may be gone within my children's lifetime. Serving on this committee is an honor and an opportunity to apply my expertise to a critically important environmental issue that our nation and world are facing.”

CSUMB School of Natural Sciences associate professor, Cheryl Logan.

The provisional committee’s first meeting was held Feb. 8-9, 2018 in Washington D.C. and included an open meeting session to solicit public input. The committee is slated to host three more public meetings throughout the course of the study to ensure the public may share their opinions, research, observations from fieldwork or other testimonies.

Findings of the study will include recommended courses of action for further research and implementation of measures to increase the resilience of coral reefs.